Gasoline or petrol for any European readers out there, has been used as the main source of fuel for various vehicles, ever since horse-drawn carriages first went out of fashion. I mean the word gasoline itself literally means, “fuel for automobiles” in the Oxford dictionary. So naturally gasoline has been used to power cars, motorbikes, trucks, boats, jets, and several other transport vehicles. However, if gasoline is so important to our tech-savvy 21st century, is it possible to imagine a future where gasoline is no longer used as a fuel source, short of nuclear annihilation? Can gasoline be replaced as a primary fuel source? Well an article from the Southern California gas company seems to think so, naming the ultimate successor to gasoline to be… natural gas. So first of all, what is the difference between the two? Well, both gasoline and natural gas are just a bunch of hydrogen and carbon atoms bonded together. What sets the two apart however, is that gasoline is made up of 8 carbon atoms held together by 18 hydrogen atoms, while natural gas is merely 1 carbon atom, attached to 4 hydrogen atoms. So basically, natural gas is a lot lighter than gasoline. Why then, is natural gas a better fuel source to use then gasoline? According to the article, vehicles that run on natural gas emit 10-20% less greenhouse gases than gasoline powered vehicles. When burned, natural gas will only produce 5-10% of CO2 that gasoline produces. It is also a lot cheaper to supply because unlike gasoline, natural gas can be used upon extraction with no refining needed. So why has gasoline not already been replaced with natural gas? Well, because even though natural gas is cheaper to extract doesn't mean that’s it cheaper to store in vehicles. Compressing natural gas alone requires a much bigger holding tank when gasoline can provide the same amount of energy in a smaller tank. There is also the sad reality that there are very few vehicles in existence that run on natural gas since there is no economic guarantee that the majority of a country’s population would transition between the two fuels. So the question of the article this time is: Is natural gas the way to go or should society stick with gasoline for now and simply wait for a more efficient fuel alternative to take of like say, electric cars?
Source:
S. (Ed.). (2010). Benefits of Natural Gas Vehicles. Retrieved from https://www.socalgas.com/for-your-business/natural-gas-vehicles/benefits
I think that it will be very difficult to completely replace gasoline with another energy source, considering that it is so heavily depended on, especially in today's society. However, I think that natural gas is quite promising because it is renewable, relatively cheap, and is much better for the environment than gasoline. We can still wait for a better energy source to rely on in the future, however using natural gas in the meantime as a substitute would be beneficial.
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